We Are Five Years Old
It is crazy to think that Family Footnote has been around the Internet for five years now. I remember sitting in a Barnes & Noble café in Nebraska in 2016, texting back and forth with Kelly who was in South Dakota trying to come up with a name for our blog. We both loved writing and we obviously loved our families, so it only made sense that we would combine the two. Our kids have played the protagonists since my youngest was 4 and Kelly only had three kids. Even though my oldest is a sophomore (and appears less in pictures), our kids are still giving us fodder for the blog.
Writing Endeavors
Family Footnote has helped us expand our knowledge base and challenge ourselves in terms of writing from the very beginning. Kelly now writes consistently for print and online outlets and I decided to go back to grad school for creative writing. While blogging and online articles seem to be fading in demand over bulleted lists and Instagram stories, we still love our blog format. We feel like it is the most wonderful marriage of old and new. And our little five-year-old blog has turned into something that almost 700 of you read, and for that, we are so thankful.
Interviews
Some of my favorite blog posts of the past have been the interviews that I’ve conducted or Kelly has written. She finds fascinating people and asks the perfect questions to get them talking. I have learned so much about eating disorder survivors, foster parents, parents of multiples, and muscular dystrophy heroes. The blog has allowed us to share some of our friends’ most essential stories and has connected our readers with them.
Reviews
I have valued Kelly’s opinion since we were in our early 20s walking around Lincoln, Nebraska like toddlers let loose in a living room. She is so funny and so right all the time. So it is no secret that the reviews she writes are some of my favorites. I loved reading The Time Traveler’s Wife and A Man Called Ove because she told me to. I now work out with audiobooks by Amy Schumer, Kevin Hart, and Amy Poehler.
Pandemic Impact
2020 was so loud that Kelly and I turned our focus from the blog toward our families’ mental health a bit more. We didn’t get to put out as much content because the world was incredibly wild and tumultuous. Now, we hope it’s ready to settle down, so we can get back to what we love: watching our kids achieve their goals, writing about escapes and celebrations, and connecting over some coffee or a glass of wine.
Thankful and #Blessed
These terms get thrown around quite a bit nowadays, but we want our readers to know just how lucky we feel to have this space. Family Footnote is more than just a blog to us. It’s a community of people who want what’s best for kids and search for ways to help children feel loved, challenged, and celebrated. Because of our readers, we’ve written a book called Full House Full Hearts. We’ve been able to make totes, coffee mugs, and car stickers. I know I speak for both of us when I say thank you so much for supporting Family Footnote for five years. 2021 will be a year like no other, and we are ready to dust off our pens and get back to connecting more people with little notes from our fun families.
As we go forward, we’d love to hear from our readers. What are some topics you’d like us to cover this next year? Thank you for your support. Here’s to year #6!